Have you been seeing a resurgence in industrial chic interior design? So have we! The combination of cool metal furniture with warm wooden accents join forces to pull off something organic and awesome. Popular especially in cafes and bistros, the use of classic steel furniture is both vintage and urban. We know what’s hot in restaurant design today, so we’ve created an inexpensive replica to the famous TOLIX® Company Model A chair that you’re seeing a lot of lately. This vintage seating design has inspired one of our newest furniture lines! We call ours Viktor, but here’s a little history of how the Viktor came to be. Because you shouldn’t have to pay tall prices for good design…agree?

According to the company’s website, the original chair was first created by French designer Xavier Pauchard (1880-1948) in 1934, who started the company TOLIX® to produce galvanized metal household items after WWI. He soon began using sheet metal to build chairs and stools, and he trademarked his company’s brand in 1927. The Model A chair was born, and matching stools soon followed. Pauchard was entrepreneurial, and the furniture he built soon became popular mainstays across many residential and commercial settings, including offices, hospitals, museums, and cafe terraces. Their international popularity peaked in the late 1950s, when the company’s 80 workers were producing 60,000 units annually.

The TOLIX® Company stayed in the Pauchard family until the early 21st Century. In 2004, Chantal Andriot bought the brand and began its revival. She recruited new designers to re-invent the functionality of the vintage French industrial chair to meet today’s tastes and market expectations. With new technology and manufacturing processes in place, the Model A chair has once again found unfailing popularity across the globe.

Because many of the restaurant owners who turn to us for their furniture needs began asking about this same design, we talked to our manufacturers about creating a similar chair at a fraction of the price without infringing on the original artist’s label. Enter Viktor. This chair is an affordable alternative to the name brand and is proof that we care about what our customers are looking for in terms of quality and style. We listened, so you can put the Viktor steel restaurant chair, bar stool, and backless bar stool to work in creating the industrial chic and urban atmosphere your restaurant decor demands.

Our Viktor line has been commercially weight tested and is made of 16-gauge rolled and stamped steel. With a ten-step finishing process, the restaurant furniture shows off its characteristic abrasions and markings, which are topped off with a clear powder coat finish. The full sigma welds ensure its industrial strength, and Viktor comes complete with non-marring rubber glides to protect your restaurant’s floor. We also wanted to give restaurant owners the ease and flexibility by making sure that the steel restaurant chair could stack on top of one another. Our owners are really pleased with how well this chair has been designed to meet our customers’ aesthetic and functionality needs.

What’s more, we had a special employee-only naming competition internally at East Coast Chair & Barstool to name this new line. With a gift certificate on the line, one of our customer care specialists, Kerry, took the honor with her name recommendation of Viktor, which stuck. Now when you see an industrial chic steel restaurant chair, you’ll just smile and think to yourself, “that’s Viktor!”

Are you interested in our other sources of inspiration? From following popular trends to creating original designs, East Coast Chair & Barstool continues to grow its own restaurant furniture lines. Let us know what you’re interested in learning about next!

When you are from Pittsburgh, you are proud of it. You root for the Steelers, you eat sandwiches with slaw, and you actually know the names of the three rivers. Located an hour north of the city of bridges, we are proud to be from western Pennsylvania.

That’s why we’re excited to introduce our new Steel City Collection! This line of metal restaurant chairs and bar stools offers a lot of variety for your unique decor and can fit a classic, more traditional atmosphere or a trendy, contemporary design. By adding wood elements to the metal frames, we’ve meshed the warmth of wood with the sturdiness of steel. Available in either silver or black steel frames, give your bar or restaurant a more customized look by choosing color of wood back, type of seat (vinyl or wood), and color of seat. This Steel City Collection is sure to please!

Driving in Pennsylvania, there are a lot of businesses that give the steel city a tribute in their name. From Steel City Bars & Grills to Steel City Saloons, it’s clear to see bar and restaurant owners are proud of their city’s roots. But a quick online search will prove that the love of Pittsburgh spreads all across the United States with establishments carrying on the steel city theme in places like Tallahassee and Los Angeles. So what is it about this great city?

Whether it’s the Penguins or the Primanti Brothers, the steel city has a lot of fame and a lot of fans!

We hope you become a fan of our newest Steel City Collection metal restaurant chairs and bar stools, too. The pieces offer a versatility that will look great in a sports bar or a family diner, in a fitness club’s cafe area or a corner pub. You don’t have to be a steel city fan to like these trendy pieces of restaurant and bar furniture. We ship to all 48 continental states. But be forewarned: many of our friendly sales consultants wear black and gold, so you may want to skip the football chat if you root for anyone but our beloved Steelers.

We would be happy to talk more to you about our great Steel City Collection! Mention this blog entry and receive 5% off your order of $1,000+ in our Steel City line (Please note: this coupon has expired, effective September 1, 2013. Call us to discuss current pricing, please.). Then sit back and enjoy your new metal restaurant chairs or bar stools for years to come!